Asides

The Democratic Party and Human Rights: The History Defies the Claims

August 31, 2012 – The Democrats have liked to promote themselves over the years as the party that has been at the vanguard of promoting such causes as civil rights and human rights generally. An impression has been cultivated that we owe advances in human rights to liberalism, which at least since the New Deal has been identified in the U.S. with the Democratic party. In this year’s platform, the Democrats are presenting themselves as opening the way to yet another new frontier in the civil and human rights struggle, as it endorses what it calls “marriage equality.” That is, it wants same-sex “marriage” to be the law of the land.

This, of course, is in line with the tendency of the Democratic party for the last generation—as it came to be dominated by an increasingly secular liberalism—to be at the vanguard of promoting such ersatz rights as abortion, sodomy, and sexual libertinism. This year, we continue to see the Democrats embrace a “no-exception” position on abortion—that is, no exceptions to the abortion liberty should be allowed (including “partial-birth” abortion)—and they will tolerate no opposition to it. So, the party continues its tradition since the Clinton era of allowing no pro-life dissent within its ranks. It would not permit the late Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania to give a speech against abortion at its 1992 Convention and this year it even refused to include language in its platform to the effect that it welcomes in its fold Democrats who are pro-life.